Alexander Stubb on NATO, Ukraine and the New World Disorder

On May 14, 2026, at Tesonet’s headquarters in Vilnius, the Geopolitics and Security Studies Center hosted a conversation with Alexander Stubb, President of the Republic of Finland. The discussion, “Rebalancing the New World Order: Cooperation in the Age of Fragmentation”, focused on the changing world order, the future of transatlantic security, and the importance of cooperation in an increasingly fragmented international environment. 

The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

Linas Kojala: Thank you for being here, Mr. President. Let’s start with some facts. You wrote a book on global geopolitics. You also played golf with President Trump for seven hours. And you also do triathlons. Which is the most exciting activity that you undertake

President Alexander Stubb: Probably golf with Trump (smiles). 

Linas Kojala: And you won, right? 

President Alexander Stubb: We were on the same team.  

Writing a book is actually quite a tedious task. It’s a little bit like writing a master’s thesis times 20. So it takes a long time and you feel you’re stuck and it’s tough, but at the end of the day it’s quite rewarding

Doing a triathlon, I really like the training part. I still do. I believe one hour of exercise gives you two hours of energy every day. And that’s also for students, by the way. It’s worth it, but you don’t need to do an Ironman to get that

And then playing golf with the President of the US is quite an exciting endeavor. I had not met him before, and we had quite a pleasant round and a lot of fun. 

Linas Kojala: And it’s not usual for the President of the US to spend seven hours with a foreign leader. 

President Alexander Stubb: I don’t know what the accrued time of the 13 presidents of the Republic of Finland has been in history in spending time with the US President, but seven hours is a chunk of that time. Of course, we were able to establish a relationship after that.  People quite often forget that in diplomacy, it’s also about personal contacts. And I feel that it’s my job as the President of Finland to have a good personal contact, if I can, with all 200 heads of state and government in the world – and no one more important than the US President. Apart from, of course, the President of Lithuania

Linas Kojala: Still, you also wrote a book, The Triangle of Power, which was already translated into 21 languages. In it, you discuss the global West, the global East, but also the global South, which is sometimes overlooked in our part of Europe. Why is that so important? 

President Alexander Stubb: I have a little bit of a fetish for three, and you can see that in the structure of the book. The book has three parts and each of the three parts has three chapters, and usually I have three theses of something. It’s something that I learned when I was studying in the US, and it helped me to conceptualize things. 

The basic argument of the book is that the world order, balance, and dynamics – three things – are changing a little bit like they changed after World War I, after World War II, and after the Cold War. 

Now we’re moving towards disorder. We could say that the Cold War was more or less orderly. It was bipolar: the US, the Soviet Union, and it was ideological. The post-Cold War period started with the unipolar moment; the benign hegemon of the world, the US, leading the pack. Many of us believed that history ended and everyone would be going towards liberal democracy, social market economy, and globalization. But that didn’t happen.  

And now we are in a multipolar world where we have a whole bunch of different types of players. Some are big, like the US and China. Some are middle powers or emerging powers like India, Egypt, Brazil, Argentina, etc. When you have this change in order, there are power vacuums, and it leads to disorder. And that’s what we’re seeing right now. 

The second argument of the book is that we’re seeing a shift in the balance of power. The balance of power for the past 200 years has been dominated by the West, whether it was the UK and France, or the US. So that’s the global West gang. We’re about 50, led by the US, trying to preserve the current liberal world order. 

Then you have the global East, led by China, followed by Russia, Iran. They don’t like the current world order. They would like to change it. That’s about 20–25 countries in the global East. 

And the ones that decide the new world order – is it multilateral or multipolar – are the global South. Why? Because they now have demography and economy on their side. 

Of course, I make some normative suggestions on what we should do in the West. I talk about a concept called values-based realism: stick to your values but be realistic. You can’t solve climate change with people that think like Lithuanians and Finns only. 

I also talk about dignified foreign policy. But the book is called The Triangle of Power, and with the wisdom of hindsight I would probably call it The Rectangle of Power now. The foreign policy of the US, and they have defined it themselves, is not about preserving the liberal world order anymore. 

Linas Kojala: You’ve already alluded to that – the US role is changing. How and why?  

President Alexander Stubb: It’s work in progress. First, I’m extremely pro-American. I’m pro-European, so therefore pro-transatlanticist. My basic education was in the US and I then continued in Europe. So I’m very much a child of the post-Cold War period and international liberalism. I’m one of your classic globalists, if you will, for good or for bad. I would like to see the US defend the world order that it created 80 years ago. But I think it’s quite safe to say that they’re not doing it anymore. 

The best way to explain it is two things which you find in the national security strategy of the US. One is ideological, and that’s MAGA – Make America Great Again. The ideology is quite right-wing. It’s anti-globalization, anti-international institutions. Therefore, don’t be in the ICC, say no to the Paris Agreement, say no to the WHO. It’s also anti-EU, and in that sense quite different. Ideologically it should be isolationist, but it is quite interventionist in practice. 

Then the second part of it is America First. There the pecking order is the following: number one, the western hemisphere; number two, the Pacific; number three, Europe; number four, the Middle East; and number five, Africa. Now that has changed with Iran. 

I can’t give you an answer why. I can’t interpret what the Trump administration wants to do. I try to be pragmatic. I work with the Trump administration where I can, and then I respectfully disagree where I can’t work. 

In foreign policy usually you have three things: values, interests and power. On values, the Americans have moved quite far out there. It’s a different value set than we are used to in Europe, where we like the liberal world order, international institutions and norms.  

On interests, the American administration is quite driven by financial interests or transactions. It can be minerals deal in Ukraine, or it can be icebreakers with Finland. There is sort of an “okay, I want to make a deal” type of thinking. Again, it’s a choice. 

And then, in terms of the third one – projection of power – what America used to do when it projected power in the liberal world order was first to go to international institutions, e.g. the UN, and say: I need a mandate to go into this crisis management operation, or I want to change the rule of the WTO because it’s not in our trade interest. If they failed in that, they went to the allies and said: listen, we didn’t get a mandate on Iraq, but could you join us in a coalition of the willing to help? 

Now, of course, the Americans don’t ask. That’s a different way of projecting power. You go into Venezuela, you don’t ask. You make claims on Greenland, you don’t ask. You go into Iran, you don’t ask. 

So the question is: what do we do from a foreign policy perspective? On Venezuela, you live with the fact. On Greenland, you push back. On Iran, you make clear that it’s outside the framework of international law. But it is, of course, in our interest that America succeeds in Iran. It’s without question, and it’s also in the interest of the region. So it’s always a balancing act.  

Linas Kojala: I have a lot of questions on this, but I wanted to quote our mutual friend Samir Saran from India, who said recently that the world order was by the West, for the West, and from the West. So the West is not anymore the center of gravity, the center of power, the center of technology. Isn’t that the case? 

President Alexander Stubb: I think he took that idea from Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India’s Foreign Minister. I think there are a few reasons for it. Especially my generation grew up in this post-Cold War era where we felt that history ended, that we took a holiday from history. 

There was a beacon of light. The Berlin Wall comes down. The Soviet Union collapses. The Baltic states regain their freedom and independence. Markets are going to rule and dominate. We don’t need the state anywhere. We can contain the system with common rules and it’s all going to work. 

But there was also intellectual laziness. It  would have required a change of the international institutions – not only the EU and NATO, but also the United Nations, the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank – because there the power structure was skewed in favor of the global West and there was a rejection of the global East. 

And now that demography in the world has changed – you look at Africa going from 1 billion to 4 billion inhabitants by the end of this century. You look at Asia going from 4 billion to 5 billion halfway in this century. You look at Europe and the US stagnating in terms of population. You add to that technological development, which now gives you much more power to generate economic wealth for everyone. You start looking at the distribution of resources, rare earths, and minerals. You now suddenly start seeing the shift of power, both economic and demographic, down south and down east.  

That empowers people, and once empowered, they’re going to start asking questions: why don’t I have power in that institution? This is the reason why things are changing, and the global South now doesn’t necessarily need to follow the global West. It might as well do it with the global East. 

The Chinese have been really good at this. They created path dependencies on critical minerals in Africa and elsewhere, without asking the types of moral questions that Westerners quite often do. That time is over. 

Linas Kojala: And you have very concrete advice or recommendations on how to change institutions such as the UN, but I wanted to talk a little bit about NATO because you joined NATO a couple of years ago. 

President Alexander Stubb: Well, to be honest, three years, one month, and 10 days ago.  And I’ve been smiling ever since. 

Linas Kojala: So welcome to the club. Yet some argue that the US is not in that club anymore. Formally, it is still an ally, but whether it is an ally in practice is already a question that is debated in public and in our region and elsewhere.  

President Alexander Stubb: Let me give you two answers on that. One is just the explanation from the Finnish perspective, and then I’ll answer your question. 

Finland did not join NATO because the population was against membership. After the Cold War we were able to join the EU – it was like 57 in favor, 43 against – but NATO was like 50 against, 20 in favor. It stayed pretty stable until February 2022, when Russia attacked Ukraine. That’s when the tables turned. It went 50 in favor, 20 against. And at its peak it was 80 in favor and sort of 10 against and 10 undecided. Now it has come down a little bit because of the turbulence in NATO. 

Moreover, we are very much security providers in NATO. We doubled Russia’s border with NATO, but we also have one of the largest militaries in Europe. We still have mandatory military service for men, voluntary for women. I did mine, my son did his.  

We’ve turned about a million Finns through the system. We can put 280,000 reserves into wartime within weeks. We have one of the biggest air force fleets in Europe: over 60 F-18s, bought 64 F-35s. We have the biggest artillery in Europe together with Poland. We have long-range missiles – air, land, and sea – and we’re now developing drone capabilities.  

My standard joke is that we don’t have those because we’re worried about Sweden. We have it because we felt that we need to have a strong enough deterrence even when we are alone. Now we’re not alone anymore, and that’s good news for us and it’s good news for NATO, especially northeastern Europe. 

I’ve often heard the question; did you join too late? And I said: no, we joined at the last moment, because if we were to apply for membership now, the answer would be nyet [Editor’s note: no in Russian], I’m afraid. 

NATO is now changing its basic structure and especially its burden sharing. You could say that it’s 60% US, 40% Europe. We’re increasingly moving to 50-50. NATO’s deterrence is based on three things. One is conventional forces, two is missiles, and three is nuclear weapons, and especially the American nuclear umbrella. And what the Americans are telling us now is that Europe needs to take more responsibility for its own defense. 

When I participated in my first NATO summit, which was commemorating the 75th birthday of NATO in Washington, DC, it was a big task to even think about us spending 2% of our GDP on defense. A year later in The Hague, with President Trump, Allies agreed to a 5% target by 2035. It’s a colossal change. 

Before, I would argue that NATO had plans and it could talk the talk, but the question was: can it walk the walk? Does it have the capabilities to back up the plans that it has? Perhaps not. Now we’re starting to have that. 

Then you come to the question: is America still engaged in NATO? My answer is yes, it is. I speak a lot with the American administration. I speak a lot with the US military. I speak a lot with President Trump. And though rhetoric sometimes feels quite uncomfortable, the commitment is still there. 

If you want to simplify it, Europe must take more responsibility for the conventional and missile defense industry. The US will take care of nuclear deterrence. So NATO is not dead. NATO is alive and kicking, and still by far the strongest military alliance in the world that will not be tested. 

Linas Kojala: You don’t take some of the statements, especially over the last couple of weeks coming from the Trump administration, that Europe wasn’t helpful in Iran, that the allies did not fulfill their mandate and the responsibility, literally? 

President Alexander Stubb: I don’t want to over-rationalize the past, but we’ve been there before: the Suez Crisis, France basically leaving NATO. We’ve been there. So there is strong rhetoric. I fully admit that. Of course, I take it seriously. When the US decides to pull 5,000 troops from Germany, I take it seriously and make sure that that will not weaken the defense posture of the alliance. 

But at the same time, let’s be honest: is it in the interest of the US to be in NATO? Or put it this way: can the US be outside of NATO? My answer is no. I’ll give you two very simple reasons. 

One, the nuclear weapons that Russia has are 100 kilometers from the border of Finland on the Kola Peninsula, in the Murmansk region. The ones that are able to survey – not necessarily control, but know what is going on in the Kola Peninsula – are the Finns, the Swedes, and the Norwegians. Not one nuclear submarine leaves the Kola Peninsula without the Norwegians knowing about it. 

Those nuclear weapons are not pointed at Vilnius, Helsinki, Stockholm, or Oslo. They are pointed at Washington, DC. They are pointed at New York. They’re pointed at Miami, and they’re pointed at Los Angeles. So if you’re an American, you ask yourself the question: do I need to be in bed with the Finns, the Swedes, and the Norwegians in NATO? The answer is probably yes. 

Second, if the US wants to project power, military or otherwise, in the Middle East, as in Iran right now, it cannot – it has absolutely no chance to operate without European bases. And the big hullabaloo in the beginning of the Iran operation was that there was one country, Spain, that didn’t allow the US to do that. And that created ongoing rhetoric. It was followed, I admit, by quite strong language in Europe: is this our war or not? We have toned it down a bit recently. 

We have made it clear that of course we support the US in their endeavors, and of course we will support the US when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz. But for the US to withdraw from Ramstein, or from the major military hospital infrastructure that takes care of wounded American soldiers in Germany, it’s not going to happen. 

So tone down the language, be a little bit more Finnish, take a sauna, take an ice bath, calm down, go golfing, and let’s sort it out. 

Linas Kojala: I think it’s an essential argument, which needs to break through the noise. We wrote an article with my colleague for The Wall Street Journal arguing that Europe is quietly helping the US even in the war in Iran, even if it is so unpopular. 

President Alexander Stubb: Not even quietly. All the bases – the US logistics don’t work without European bases. 

Linas Kojala: You’ve already mentioned a prescription, I suppose, on how to deal with some of these challenges, and that’s the principle of values-based realism. Let me push back a little bit. Isn’t that a little bit contradictory? Because realism is somewhat based on cynicism and on power, while values are obviously normative. So can you bridge those two things together into a workable model of foreign policy? 

President Alexander Stubb: I think the two of us have been reading too much international relations theory. (smiles) 

The basic idea is that you stick to your values, which in our case would be human rights, fundamental rights, freedom, democracy, justice, equality, protection of minorities. We find them in the EU charters, we find them in the UN Charter, etc. 

But you could argue also that they’re Western liberal values. They begin from the idea of individual freedom, and then they try to project that. My argument is that the most successful societies in the world abide by these. If you look at, say, top 50 ranking on freedom, on media freedom, on equality, on environmental quality of life, or on happiness, we’re all there: democracies. 

So stay true to your values, but be realistic. And here’s where realism comes in: you’re not going to solve the world’s problems with like-minded countries only. If you want to solve climate change, if you want to solve energy, if you want to eradicate poverty globally, if you want to have food security, if you want to solve wars and conflicts, you actually need to talk with people who don’t look like you, who don’t talk like you and who don’t think like you. That’s why I talk about values-based realism. 

Let me push it one step further. Though it might seem like a contradiction in terms, the truth is that foreign policy or diplomacy is never consistent. There are always going to be double standards. As uncomfortable as it sounds, you must make a value judgment in foreign policy every day, and that always brings realism. 

I’ll give you one example. Are you willing to give development aid to a country where homosexuality is punishable by the death penalty? I would probably say yes, if that country needs it and if it helps eradicate poverty. Do you buy arms from a country which is in a war which is against international law and with which you disagree? If it is about defending yourself, the likely answer is yes. 

So that’s why I’m saying that there’s not going to be a moment in your life as a diplomat where you’re only doing easy decisions, where your values are at the forefront and everyone will agree with what you do. 

Foreign policy and diplomacy are not binary. They are not black or white. Values-based realism is not a doctrine, but it’s an instrument that gets us through the next stage in this world order. It was easy to be a values-based idealist after the end of the Cold War, but it was a little bit more difficult to do that after Russia attacked Ukraine. 

Linas Kojala: Is that why you’re arguing Europe should open channels of conversation with Russia? 

President Alexander Stubb: Part of it, yes. But also – what I have said with some European leaders is that we have now reached a stage in this war where Ukraine is in a position of strength. We must ask ourselves the question: does the US drive a foreign policy vis-à-vis Russia or Ukraine which is always in the interest of Europe, Finland, or Lithuania? If the answer to that question is: well, not always, then we need to think about what we do about it. 

This is not about legitimizing a leader who has started an illegal war of aggression in Ukraine. It’s about finding a solution to a conflict to which there seems to be no end. And we can do it now at some stage because Ukraine is in a position of strength. 

The first year of this war for Ukraine was about survival. The next three years of this war were about resilience, or as we would say in Finnish, sisu. This year is about mathematics. 

What do I mean? In the past five months, Ukraine has killed or wounded on average 30,000 to 35,000 Russian soldiers per month. Second, the killing ratio at the beginning of this year was one to five: one Ukrainian to five Russian soldiers. Now it’s one to seven or eight Russian soldiers. In the month of March, for the first time, Ukraine was able to launch more missiles and drones into Russia than Russia was able to launch into Ukraine. For the first time in this war, in the month of April, Ukraine was able to take back more territory from Russia than Russia was able to gain. 

And the reason for this is that we’re now not only in a war of attrition, but in a war in which 95% of the damage is made by Ukrainian drones. There’s a death zone of 20 to 40 kilometers where basically you don’t have any human beings. If Russia tries to send some over, which Russia does in small numbers, they all get killed. So Russia is not advancing anymore. 

The mood in Russia is changing. I can’t verify this, but reliable sources tell me that a majority of the population in Russia is now against the war. There are two reasons for this. One is Ukraine’s capacity to launch long-range missiles and drones deep into Russia. Suddenly the war is not anymore for Russians outside of St. Petersburg and Moscow only. 

And the second reason is that Russia has had to limit internet, Telegram, and WhatsApp. And now suddenly people are feeling the elements of this war, and this is changing the tide.  

The US is now very preoccupied in Iran. We need to work under the American umbrella. But perhaps because Ukraine is doing so much better, it’s time for us also to engage with Russia. 

Linas Kojala: And yet, Mr. President, we’re sitting at a very small table, while when Europeans go to Moscow, they tend to sit at a very long table with Putin – it tends to be very difficult to hear what the other side is saying. Are you arguing that there is a more receptive audience today in the Kremlin? Is there a chance for a proper dialogue rather than just another iteration of Russia’s ultimatums on Ukraine and beyond? 

President Alexander Stubb: My direct answer to that is no. We should not be naive about Russia and Russia’s leadership. That is what we have learned having 1,340 kilometers of border with Russia. 

At the same time, we have also learned that engagement is better than disengagement, that dialogue is better than silence, and that the reality is that we will remain Russia’s neighbors. So we have to ask ourselves the question: how do we engage? 

 But for me, that engagement would require a coordinated approach by Americans, Europeans – and that means E5 (the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Poland), as well as Nordic-Baltics. Of course it also needs a green light from Ukraine. 

 So I’m just trying to prepare ourselves mentally for a moment whereby we might have to engage with Russia. And I think it’s going to be by phone. 

 Linas Kojala: Do you think that Europeans should have a special envoy for that mission, an individual? 

 President Alexander Stubb: It’s hard to say. It’s kind of difficult probably for Europeans to agree on that. And to a certain extent, having a special envoy elevates it too much. I’m just talking about an initial contact. 

 For me, naturally, it would probably be perhaps two, three, four countries at the same time over the phone, and then you would have an agenda which could be quite concrete but have low expectations. Not much will come out of that conversation, and you have to understand that. 

 At the same time, Russia is now in a position where I think it is more willing than before to talk with Europeans, because clearly Ukraine is not going to lose this war. 

 Linas Kojala: And maybe we have a person in this room who could be that individual. 

 President Alexander Stubb: I don’t know. (smiles) 

 Linas Kojala: You’ve mentioned recently that Ukraine needs Europe, of course, but Europe needs Ukraine probably even more. Let me share one concern with you. I’m concerned whether we are not alienating Ukraine by not providing it a clear pathway to the West, the EU membership specifically. In the future, this could be a problem. Are we doing enough to make sure that Ukraine is clearly moving towards the West by integrating into structures, by trading with the West, etc.? 

 President Alexander Stubb: I agree with the undercurrent of your question fully. What we started to do about four or five months ago was to say that Ukraine will not lose this war, which means that Russia doesn’t win this war. In the theory of war, it’s quite clear: if a big one attacks a small one, the small one is fighting for its existence. If the small one still exists – independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity – by definition, the small one will have won. 

 So we started to change the narrative, because, especially in some quarters in the US, there was this argument that Ukraine is going to lose this war, so why don’t they just go ahead and give up Donetsk. It is clearly not the case. 

 The second narrative that we have changed is that Ukraine needs military and financial support from the West, including a €90 billion EU loan and American defense material through NATO’s Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) initiative. 

 But the reality is that we actually need Ukraine as much as they need us, because there’s only one military in Europe that is 800,000 strong and capable of modern warfare: drones, missile defense, and drone defense. You could see that happening when the war in Iran began. What did Ukraine do? It sent 400 military personnel in 10 different teams to the Gulf region to teach the countries that were attacked by Iran how to defend themselves against drones and missiles. 

 We’re starting to see Ukrainians making drone deals with Europeans. Basically co-production, because they know how to produce them. The Ukrainians have all the data which is linked to drone warfare and missile warfare. We cannot afford to be without the Ukrainians anymore. We need to get Ukraine into the EU and NATO. We need them as much as they need us. 

 Linas Kojala: And when could that happen realistically? 

 President Alexander Stubb: I don’t know. As President in Finland, I lead Finnish foreign policy, but the Prime Minister does domestic policy and the EU. But if I had a choice, and I think this is Finland’s position as well, we should open the first chapter of the negotiations at the EU summit this June. 

 Of course membership might take a long time. I’m an EU nerd. I wrote my PhD on flexible integration. Not everyone has to do everything at the same time. So I’m sure we’ll find a flexible way of bringing Ukraine in.  

 But it’s a no-brainer. If our main aim is to deter Russian aggression, our biggest long-term security threat is still Russia. So how do you deal with it? By maximizing your security. How do you maximize your security? By having your own strong national defense and increasing defense expenditure. But look who can help you: the Ukrainians. They have shown it. 

 The Soviet Union in four years in World War II marched 1,600 kilometers into Berlin. The Russian military since the beginning of the war of aggression in February 2022 has marched 60 kilometers into Donetsk. Who knows how to do modern warfare? Ukraine does. Therefore, we need them. 

 Linas Kojala: A question from the audience. Why are only former NATO generals and presidents saying openly that Russia has no chance to win and just should back off? Why are current leaders hesitant to say it now in public? 

 President Alexander Stubb: Well, I guess I am a former prime minister, but I did leave politics in 2016, never to return again. And I felt that the freedom of expression that I had when not in office was much higher than the one I have right now. It basically means that you can say out loud things that perhaps current generals or politicians cannot say. But in this particular case, I would agree with those who talk in this direction, that Russia should back off. 

 Linas Kojala: I’ll piggyback on that. Do you sense that the Russian regime could be more unstable than ever before? 

 President Alexander Stubb: Possibly. I don’t want to speculate on that. I’ve said it before: deal with the world as it is, not as you would wish it to be. And we now have a Russian leadership which we in Europe 99% disagree with. And we don’t know what’s going to happen to that regime. 

 Linas Kojala: And is there still unity among European countries that we could, should, must maintain the sanctions regime? We must keep the pressure up? 

 President Alexander Stubb: Yes. Probably now, after Hungary’s parliamentary elections, we have more unity. I actually feel that I’ve never seen the EU more united than we have been for the past 10 years. And this goes  back as Brexit. So Brexit, in a strange kind of a way, as much as I did not like it, unified Europe to say: okay, we don’t want that to happen to my country. 

 Then came Covid. Suddenly you have an external pandemic and a threat. You realize that you need to procure vaccines and do it together, so it unifies you. 

 Then you have Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine. We kind of woke up. We didn’t wake up after Georgia in 2008. We didn’t wake up with the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. But 2022 – boom – you suddenly start supporting Ukraine militarily. You start using a much tougher language. You freeze Russian assets and have adopted 20 packages of sanctions. Who would have thought that we can basically wean ourselves off Russian energy? For Finland, it wasn’t difficult. We weren’t dependent. But Europe has now done it. We’ve gotten quite far. 

  And now I could also argue that given that there is a change in US policy, that brings Europe more unified. So I’m quite confident that we can continue this unity, with the little caveats that happen along the way. There’s always going to be someone that disagrees and screams and shouts. 

 Linas Kojala: And should there be more integration in defense as well, possibly moving up to having European military force? 

 President Alexander Stubb: Before I joined NATO, I’d say yes, definitely. But I think there we need to look at who does what. 

 For me it all starts with national defense, because that is your number one protector. You need to be strong. Then after that it goes into two caveats. One is NATO, the other one is the EU. NATO is collective defense. It has the operational capacity, the bases, the system. No one will attack NATO because of Article 5. 

 Then you have the EU. What can the EU do? Yes, we have Article 42.7, which actually in terms of language is even stronger than Article 5. Yet the EU doesn’t have the operative capabilities. But the EU has money to try to help the member states, most of whom are also in NATO, to improve their defense. 

 What I envision in this is not a binary either-or. It’s both, and probably a stronger European pillar inside NATO. That’s what I’d like to see. 

 Linas Kojala: Can the US still be a reliable partner, an ally to deter Russia? It’s a repetition of what we discussed, but still I think it’s very important for the audience. 

 President Alexander Stubb: The short answer is yes. But I do understand that deterrence is about two things. It’s about capabilities and about communication. And on the communication, I hope we would tone down the language. 

 In my experience in diplomacy or in the family, using tough language doesn’t always work. It’s better to use soft language and then persuade countries to do what you want them to do. 

 The Americans are right to ask Europe to do more on their defense and security. So let’s just make the burden shifting structured. It is in the interest of the US to stay engaged in NATO.  

 Linas Kojala: Will all NATO countries’ heads of state or heads of government meet at this year’s NATO Summit in Ankara? 

 President Alexander Stubb: As far as I know, there are no indications that this would not be the case. It’s being hosted by President Erdoğan, and, as always, it’s an important NATO Summit. 

 We are in the process of building NATO 3.0. Stronger Europe in a stronger NATO. If in Ankara we get continued commitment to 5%; something on defense industry; something on Ukraine being a security provider; and something on Arctic security, I think I’ll be happy. 

 Linas Kojala: What is one core problem that you would like to see resolved in the area of European defence industry in the next year? 

 President Alexander Stubb: Coordination. Basically, our order sheets need to be unified. We have too many tank systems, too many air defense systems. We are quite often too nationalistic in the way in which we set up. 

 If you have common operative structures, you need to have also a common defense policy. I think what EU Commissioner on Defense and Space Andrius Kubilius is doing is good. It’s not an easy job because the defense industry traditionally has been very complicated. 

 I’ll give you one more example. When I left politics, I worked for a while for the European Investment Bank (EIB). At the time, I was in charge of security and defense, but the EIB was basically not allowed to give loans in defense. Now they can do more in dual-use goods and others.  

 A lot of defense industry companies are doing well. In Finland, for instance, we’re very strong on satellites and we’re very strong on quantum computing. 

 A final point: modern warfare is changing so fast; much of future war is going to be unmanned. At the center of modern warfare is also artificial intelligence. For artificial intelligence to run effectively and efficiently, you need quantum. And in order for quantum to run, you need networks that are reliable and trustworthy also in battle situations. And satellites. 

 So I’m quite optimistic about where we are, especially from a Finnish perspective. 

 Linas Kojala: You focus a lot on technology in your book. Do we see more potential or risks in terms of AI development? Clearly it has geopolitical implications.  

 President Alexander Stubb: The combination of artificial intelligence and biotechnology provides both a risk and an opportunity. 

 It’s changing politics and the way in which we communicate. I think it’s actually rewiring our brains. The reason we’re so polarized is that our brains are not used to modern technology. And all of those who are worried about Neuralink and us becoming cyborgs, I think we are already cyborgs in some ways. Try to live without a phone for two weeks. Good luck (smiles). 

 It’s also changing how war is being conducted. There are profound ethical questions about what it is to be a human being. When you link that to things such as nuclear weapons or biology, e.g. pandemics, you cannot allow them to run rampant. 

 What we need is some kind of, if not regulation, at least a system where the big players in this world understand, just like in science, that there are rules and limits to what can be done. 

 I think what Mythos did, from what I understand, is good [Editor’s note: Claude Mythos² Preview is Anthropic’s unreleased frontier model with advanced cybersecurity capabilities. Because of the risk of misuse, the company decided not to release it publicly and instead launched Project Glasswing – a controlled initiative giving selected partners access to use the model for defensive vulnerability discovery and mitigation.] 

 And in the tech world, in my mind, you have good guys and bad guys. The good guys are the ones like Demis Hassabis from DeepMind, who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with John Jumper for AI-based protein structure prediction. And then you have bad guys. I’m not going to name them, but you can imagine a few. 

 What we need to do now is to get the American administration to understand that you cannot let the bad guys – no matter how much financial gain you get from tech – run rampant. And we need to get the Europeans to understand that you cannot regulate AI because you’re always going to be two, three, four years behind the cycle. 

 But I’m also a bit of a Yuval Noah Harari type of person: AI is the first technology that has agency. All the other technologies that we had, whether it’s the calculator or the computer or the radio or the TV, didn’t have agency. It was just a tool. It had software in it, but it was basically hardware. Now with general artificial intelligence, you have technology which has agency. And the most important thing is that we have control of that technology. 

 Linas Kojala: I opened today’s Financial Times and saw a graphic which shows that the US is leading the way in developing AI and China is catching up. Europe was nowhere to be seen. Is that the case? 

 President Alexander Stubb: One of the problems that we have in Europe is that we fight former technological battles.  

 Finland and Sweden dominated the telecoms world with Ericsson and Nokia. We thought we were going to be the champs in this. Then came the 2000s, and suddenly the Americans start dominating the software side of things, understanding that it’s not only about the mobile phone, not even only about the network – it’s about the software.  

Then suddenly we start moving in the 2010s towards artificial intelligence. The Chinese wake up to it after DeepMind’s AlphaGo defeated the human champion in the game Go, and they say: whoa, we need to improve this. 

 In order for you to improve that, you obviously need innovation, you need research, you need development, but at the end of the day you need data. And what we did in Europe was we imprisoned the data, whereas in America and China they allowed people to start using it. 

 But now we’re in the 2020s, and what makes me optimistic is that artificial intelligence needs two things which I mentioned: quantum, which is basically the infrastructure of how you get the stuff moving at a pace which we have never seen before; and networks. 

 For instance, Ericsson and Nokia are trustworthy networks. Then the networks will start moving to space. Do we in Europe have good satellites and capacity to have data centers in space? Yes. 

 Look at a company like Mistral from France. Look at satellite companies like ICEYE from Finland, or ReOrbit, or Kuva Space from Finland. We have the capacity. On the quantum side, I want Finland to be what Taiwan is to chips. We have a company called IQM, which is top three in the world, and we have a company called Bluefors, which basically does 50% of the cooling down of quantum systems and supercomputers. And this is only from Finland. 

 So my argument is that we have a lot of that capacity, but the key is to always be cutting edge. I’m not giving up hope on Europe and artificial intelligence. 

 Linas Kojala: Nordic-Baltic countries – are we a family? And is there a distinction between the Baltic and the Nordic part in the family? 

 President Alexander Stubb: Yes, definitely. There’s no question about it. I think NB8 is the closest family that we have. I’m a Protestant, so eight in the family is a lot, but I can live with it. 

 Geographically and historically, the Nordic and Baltic countries differ. But in terms of interest and values, I would say no. I always feel the close kinship to the Nordics and the Baltics. It doesn’t matter where I am, whether it’s in NATO or any other format. Any differences are so small right now that it doesn’t really matter. And we’re going in the right direction. 

 Regional integration is a good breeding ground for global integration. I want to gently remind my Nordic friends that before Finland joined NATO, there were three countries in the NB8 who were 100% integrated both into NATO and the EU, including the eurozone. And none of them were Nordic. So we have a lot to learn from the Baltic states as well. 

 Linas Kojala: What would be your advice, especially to the younger generation? How to adapt to the reality of geopolitics, to the reality of AI, to so many changes taking place in a very short period of time? 

President Alexander Stubb: Four things that were instilled in me when I was a kid by my parents, and which we then transferred to our kids: dream, believe, work hard, and succeed. 

Dream means that you always have to have dreams in life. Not all of them – probably only a small amount – will ever materialize. But there’s nothing wrong in dreaming big. It can be about your life. It can be about your family. It can be about your career. So dream big. 

Second, believe. If you don’t believe in yourself, there are not going to be many people around you who do. And I know, especially with the impulses that come from modern technology and social media, the pressure is tremendous – completely different from my generation. Of course, we had it, but it wasn’t that bad. But believe in yourself. And if you believe in yourself, you also have to accept failure, because you will fail throughout life. You will screw up in things. Sometimes they’re big, sometimes they’re small, but don’t worry, you’ll get over them. 

Three, work hard. And I don’t mean to pressure you into getting straight A’s, or putting in 16-hour days. It’s not about that. But I have never come across anyone who is fully satisfied in their life without putting some kind of effort into it. It doesn’t matter what it is, but you always need to have a part of your life when you actually work hard. 

And then the final one is succeed. This is super important. Remember that the definition of success is not about material wealth. It’s not societal status. It’s not a title. The meaning of life and success is: are you able to lead a meaningful life? 

And that’s a question that you fundamentally end up asking yourself not only at the end of life, but throughout life: what gives you a meaningful life? We have enough comfort and security and food on the table in the Baltics and the Nordics. So it comes from helping others. Helping yourself is fine, but if you want to find true meaning, it means that you actually have an impact on someone else’s life in a positive way. 

And the final advice is: keep your mind always open, be curious, learn new things every day. That will lead to a meaningful life.